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The last leg of our journey was a short walk to the main gate of Centre Compound, where through the double strands of barbed wire we could see a crowd of airmen in a variety of uniforms. They wanted to see the new guys who, like themselves, had been shot down. They were eager to see if there were any friends from their squadron or perhaps from their home in the latest purge. The gate swung open and clanged shut behind us as we passed through. There was a certain finality to this and left no doubt that we were prisoners. In the welcoming committee was Bill Thurston, the bomb aimer Lou Fellner's crew. They had the dubious distinction of being the first Lion Squadron Halifax to be shot down. The only other spectators I knew were George large and a guy named Vogel who were on 408 Squadron at Leeming and had gone missing a few weeks earlier.

At this stage, Centre Compound was only partially filled and was occupied primarily by British and Commonwealth aircrew officers. There were some Americans (USAAC) too and they began arriving in ever increasing numbers. A British Squadron Leader directed us to Block 40 which was just inside the main gate. It was one of the dozen barrack blocks or huts in Centre Camp as it was called. Each hut was divided by a partition across the centre. There were about 100 kriegies in each Block when filled to capacity.

I was issued my first Red Cross parcel and it was customary for 6 or 8 or more kriegies to pool the food to fully utilize the contents. We formed combines with the bunks arranged in rectangles or squares with a table in the centre for communal living. In my combine at Centre Camp there was Max Ellis, Cy Grant, Eric Lapham and myself for the first few days. We had been together in the Amsterdam jail. Max was a grizzled character in his late thirties or early forties and somehow and wangled his way into aircrew as a gunner on a Pathfinder squadron. He was a soldier of fortune having served for five years in the French Foreign Legion. He had attended Sandhurst the famous military school where one of his classmates was David Niven. I'm not sure that either of them ever graduated. Cy Grant, the son of a black clergyman in British Guyana (now Guyana) had travelled to Britain to join RAF and trained as a navigator. Eric Lapham from Bristol also a navigator, was shot down while serving on 429 RCAF Squadron.

About this time, Jerry Huston arrived and joined our combine. Jerry was the rear gunner in Fellner's crew and injured his back when they crash landed on the island of Texel. He didn't arrive at Sagan with fellow crewman Bill Thurston due to a spell in hospital. Lou Fellner, the pilot, was the only other survivor in that crew and so badly injured that he spent many months in hospitals until repatriated for medical reasons. Jerry Huston was from Toronto and had worked in Cleveland for five years before enlisting.

The next arrivals were Don Morgan, a 428 Squadron pilot, and his navigator Frank Ditchburn. Don was raised on a dairy farm near Woodstock and worked in Toronto before enlisting. Frank Ditchburn was yet another Trontonian and had worked at Canadian General Electric for a short time. Soon afterwards, Al Langille appeared on the scene and looked as if he should still be in hospital. His head, resting on one shoulder, seemed to be fused in that position. Al suffered serious injuries in the bailout from his 103 Squadron Lancaster and as it turned out had broken his neck. It was a miracle that he was still alive. From the beginning, Al was one funny guy and his first words to us were, " See what Atlas did for me ". He was referring to Charles Atlas, a body builder, who advertised that he was once a 97 pound weekling and was now a Mr. America. Al hailed from Sydney, NS resided on Yendys Street which is Sydney spelt backwards.

Al found his way to our combine courtesy of his navigator Cy Grant who spotted him at the main gate and naturally invited him to join the group. There was another connection to. Al Langille and Don Morgan had been on Guard Duty together at Mount Hope and remained together through Wings Parade at Brandon in the fall of 1941. By coincidence they had also graduated with my own pilot Lou Somers who unfortunately was now in the ranks of the missing.

It is time to record my recollection of my first weeks in prison camp. It was lovely summer weather much like Canada in July. We settled into a daily routine off 'Appell' gathered on the sports in the morning and again in the afternoon. I'll deal later with our daily activities. Appell was the name given to the assembly of all prisoners, except those who were ill, whofield for the official daily count conducted by the German authorities to make sure no one had escaped. When things went smoothly, the count took about half an hour and we were dismissed with the Senior Allied Officer and the Luftwaffe Officer exchanging salutes. The latter usually used the Hei Hitler salute but not always. Sometimes the count seemed to take forever as we huddled out in the cold and the rain. Other than Appell we were pretty much permitted to organize our daily lives. We were not required to work as was the case in the enlisted men's camps. Internally the camp was run by the prisoners themselves with the Senior Allied Officer in charge overall. A Block Commander was in charge of each hut – in the case of our Block 40, S/L Colin Hughes DSO DFM, whom I was with in Amsterdam, was in charge.

It was by no means freedom as we were constantly watched by the guards in the sentry towers night and day. The towers were equipped with machine guns which were swivel – mounted and searchlight beams swept the area from dusk to dawn. Inside the camp there were always several guards or ferrets, as we called them, roaming the grounds and searching under the huts for evidence of tunnels or other escape activities. The ferrets wore blue coveralls to make it easier to crawl under the huts and to probe for tunnels. Each compound was enclosed by double strands of barbed wire about twelve feet high. The wire sloped inward at the top making it difficult to climb and exit on the far side. The strands of barbed wire were about two feet apart with additional coils of barbed wire in between making it impossible wiggle through at ground level. About 20 feet inside the barbed wire was a warning wire fastened to wooden stakes extending around the perimeter of the camp. Inside the warning wire was a dirt track also extending around the camp. This was known as the circuit and 'walking the circuit' was a favourite pastime when kriegies in twos and threes got their exercise and discussed the progress of the war, their families and post-war aspirations. When walking the circuit or otherwise near the warning wire it was prohibited to cross over or even to touch the wire. The guards in the towers were very sticky about the sanctity of the warning wire and a few prisoners had the scars to prove it.

In the following weeks there were more new arrivals as air activity and losses mounted. In early September, William T. (Paddy) Batson and Grenville (Parky) Parkinson joined our combine. Both of them were thin as a rail having spent the previous six weeks in Fresnes prison in Paris as guests of the Gestapo. Both had been captured in civilian clothes while attempting to make their way back to Britain as many invaders were able to do during the course of the war. In Parky's case it was a near thing — he was captured in the Pyrenees mountains within a few miles of Spain

Paddy was from Erie and like so many from neutral Southern Ireland chose to fight the Nazis even though they didn't like the English very much. We gave them a good meal which Al Langille, our self-appointed chef, whipped up from Red Cross supplies. In a few weeks Paddy and Parky lost that gaunt and haggard look. I might mention something about our newest members. Paddy was a bomb aimer on 50 squadron RAF, a veteran of more than 30 operations and holder of the DFM. His home was in Cobh (or Cork) and had worked for Cunard before the war. Parky was a navigator on 408 squadron RCAF and was shot down on his first trip. It happened that I knew Parky from the five days that he and his pilot Lee Usher and crew spent on my squadron at Croft before being posted to 408. He and his crew were also at Pershore in the course behind us. Parky graduated from my old navigation school at Ancienne Lorette in the summer of 1942. Among his classmates were my navigator Max Shvemar, now dead, and Stu Dunbar my room-mate back on the squadron and still flying. Parky had worked briefly for the Bank of Commerce before enlisting. And so our combine was beginning to fill up.

I mentioned that our bunks were arranged in rectangles or squares to enclose each combine. The wooden bunks were two-tier with wooden bed boards supporting a straw paillasse or mattress for each bunk. The Germans provided a cover for the paillasse which was laundered once in a while. We were also issued a grey service blanket very rough in texture which was barely adequate. Later we received a US Army khaki blanket which was lovely and warm and generous in size.

Food was a favourite topic of conversation and for the first year we are managed okay thanks to the Red Cross. The Germans provided basic rations e.g. five slices of black bread per man per day. We also drew a daily ration of potatoes and received cabbage or turnips once or twice a week in season. Occasionally we received meat although we didn't know the source, it was safe to say that a race track somewhere in Germany had an empty stall. Also we sometimes received a ration of goon jam or goon cheese. I mentioned the word 'goon' which was a disparaging term describing anything German. We spoke of the guards as goons, the sentry towers were goon boxes and so on. The jam was probably made from turnips, the cheese was rancid and therefore earned the goon prefix. We were glad of the sour black bread and potatoes as staples but in the good times we relied primarily on the contents of Red Cross parcels for calories and flavorful food.

The availability of Red Cross parcels was largely dependent on the state of the German transportation system since the parcels were first shipped from the country of origin to Switzerland or Sweden and then brought into Germany. During my first 14 months in camp I received one parcel each week as did everyone else. In my experience more than half of all food parcels were from Canada and in the opinion of many kriegies they were the best in terms of nutrition and quality. Other parcels were received from the Red Cross in the USA, Great Britain and occasionally New Zealand. All were most welcome and quite literally were lifesavers. The sweetest music this side of heaven was the call, "Parcels up!" Which meant that the wagon was out front laden with the weekly delivery of parcels. There was never any shortage of volunteers to carry the 11 pound cartons to the living quarters. We placed a locker on its side to serve as a counter top with the canned food stored inside. As far as I know this precious food was never stolen although it was fairly accessible in the open barracks.

I have been asked about the contents of the parcels and the following list reveals what the good people of Canada included in a typical parcel:

• 12 oz. corned beef
• 12 oz. meat loaf
• 7.5 oz. salmon
• 4.5 oz sardines
• 16 oz powdered milk
• 16 oz butter
• 4 oz cheese
• 16 oz jam or marmalade
• 7 oz raisins
• 6 oz prunes
• 12 oz biscuits
• 8 oz sugar
• 5 oz Nelson's chocolate
• 4 oz tea or coffee
• 1 bar of soap

A feature of the America parcels was the inclusion of a pack of cigarettes and the brand names were Lucky Strikes, Camels, Chesterfields and Philip Morris — all popular brands at the time.I didn't smoke but for those who did, it was a change from Players, Buckinghams, Sweet Caps, British Consols and Export received by the carton in personal parcels from home. At various times I received cigarettes from the Port Hope Lions Club and the POW Relatives Association. Except for the last few months of the war, most Canadians had more cigarettes than they could use due to the generosity of the folks back home. At this stage cigarettes had a rather limited barter value. This would change as supplies dried up.

Letters to and from home were an important part of a prisoners life and a real morale booster. The Germans allocated to each POW three one-page letter forms and four cards per month and I invariably reserved the letter forms for my folks. The cards I sent to other relatives, a few old girlfriends and so on. I couldn't begin to write to everyone who wrote to me but I did my best to spread the cards around. There was no limit to the quantity of incoming mail and I was one of the lucky ones. My folks learned in mid-July that I was a POW and mother started writing to me as soon as she knew my address. I started receiving letters in October — and that was the average interval which meant that the turnaround time was 5 or 6 months.

My first parcel arrived in late October. Mother had relied on advice from the POW Relatives Association since at the time of mailing she hadn't heard from me. Among other things she sent a plentiful supply of razor blades which was okay except that I shaved only about twice a week. I remember giving Max Ellis a package of Gillette blades and he was eternally grateful. I was glad to help this fine gentleman who had such a distinguished background. One ten-pound personal package from home was permitted every three months and for the first 18 months I received these parcels regularly. From late autumn 1944 until the end of the war, few parcels arrived due to the chaotic state of the German transportation system.

People often ask how we put in our time. As mentioned earlier, officers were not required to work so we had quite a bit of time on our hands. We prepared our own meals and in the combine I was in, we had a duty roster for household chores ie cleaning the living room, peeling potatoes, washing the dishes etc. We worked in pairs and rotated the duties every week. Al Langille was the semi-permanent cook for much of the time and made the most of the goon rations and Red Cross ingredients. And so household chores took up some of the time.

We had a library of sorts composed of books sent in personal parcels and from service organizations. Although I received four copies of Mutiny on the Bounty and it seemed that a lot of surplus books from the publishers found their way to prison camps and paid for by some unsuspecting relative. This is not to say that they were not welcome. At any rate we did a lot of reading. It was in camp that I learned to play bridge and it became a popular pastime. In those days it was Eli Culbertson who was considered the authority on bridge and his system of bidding reigned supreme. Most of us walked the circuit at least twice a day. It was good exercise and got us out of the hut which was rather confining.

in the summer, sports played a big part in our lives as participants or spectators. I must be careful lest POW life will begin to sound like the Club Med. Not so. The YMCA and other organizations provided limited quantities of basic items for team sports, eg softball, basketball, soccer, rugger, cricket etc. This was most welcome and in good weather there was usually a match of some sort being played on the sports field which was hard packed sand in most cases. Americans and Canadians played mostly softball and basketball and soccer was a favourite with the Brits. Thet referred to baseball as rounders. The Aussies, Kiwis and Brits liked cricket and some of us Canadians tried the sport and found that it wasn't as easy as it looked. The ball would take a wicked break as it caroomed off the hard ground and lo and behold the bales resting on the vertical stakes were knocked flying and the batsman was 'bowled clean' to use cricket lingo.

In the Centre Compound there was a Security and Escape Committee composed of experienced POWs who had been in other camps. One of the basic requirements was to know when and where the guards and ferrets were within the camp at all times and to do this we maintained a lookout within view of the main gate. I took my turn as duty lookout and like the others, kept the log and recorded the time when every German entered or left the camp. We knew most of them by nickname eg 'Slim', 'Popeye', etc. The guards knew very well what we were doing and would sometimes wave as they passed a lookout station.

There was one escape from Centre Compound when I was there but the escapee didn't get very far. He was a Brit named Schneider (a good German name) who spoke excellent German. He dressed up in blue coveralls similar to those worn by the ferrets and appeared near the fence with a wooden ladder that he and his helpers had somehow fashioned. He stepped nonchalantly over the warning wire and placed the ladder against the top of the barbed wire enclosure. He motioned to the guard in the nearest sentry tower that he had some work to do and climbed the ladder to the top and then brazenly climbed down the far side which placed him in the German administrative section of Stalag Luft 3. From there it would have been clear sailing out to the main road. Schneider didn't get very far when he was spotted by an alert guard who thought he looked suspiciously familiar. He was apprehended and got 14 days in the cooler for his escapade. A few weeks later, he and some other kriegies transferred voluntarily to the North Compound and I lost track of him. Still it was a good try for a new prisoner.

In mid-1943 there was tunneling going on in most of the camps and Centre Compound was no exception. I didn't look down into the tunnel —that was left to more experienced people. I did help to disperse sand in the early evenings when there were fewer guards around. The tunnel was discovered in a matter of weeks by driving heavy wagons over the surface.

in the autumn of 1943 there was a famous escape from East Compound which was the camp next door. Since we were separated by a lot of barbed wire and a wooden barrier, we had no idea that the classic 'Wooden Horse' escape was underway. By concealing two tunnelers inside a vaulting horse, a tunnel was constructed under the very noses of the guards in broad daylight. Day after day the vaulters performed their gymnastic routines while the diggers below were busily filling bags with sand. Later in the day the horse with the tunnelers and the sand inside would be hauled to one of the huts. The scheme continued for months and the guards accepted the vaulting as a routine activity by a bunch of eccentric physical fitness nuts. When the tunnel was completed, a plan was developed whereby three prisoners actually escaped. Next day when the Germans realized that there had been an escape there was all kinds of commotion in the East Compound. We stood on the wash-house roof in our camp to see what was going on next door. There were German guards and security forces milling about more than the usual amount of shouting. There was not much they could do at this stage. The Germans were angry and embarrassed that they had been outwitted but took no punitive action. The three escapees, Oliver Philpot, originally from Vancouver, and two Brits made it to Sweden via the Baltic ports.

About this time two new kriegies joined our combine. They were members of the US Army Air Corps shot down on one of the Schweinfurt raids when the Flying Fortresses were dropping like flies. These two Americans, Howard E. Dey and Joseph Columbus were bombardediers in the same B-17 Group and had trained together in the US. They were both friendly guys and interesting types. Howie Dey was from Los Angeles had been a cartoonist for the Disney studios before enlisting. He could draw Bugs Bunny, Pluto and all the other characters. Joe Columbus was from a town in Pennsylvania and claimed that his family had Mafia connections. They remained in our combine for my remaining months in Centre Compound and fitted in well.

By now we had an American Colonel as the Senior Allied Officer in camp. His name was Delmar T. Spivey who already had a long career in the US Army Air Corps. Col. Spivey was a West Point graduate and had been sent to Europe by the Pentagon to find out why so many Flying Fortresses were being shot down. On his second trip, or mission to use the American terminology, he found out the hard way. His role was an observer and the B-17 in which he was flying was knocked out of the sky. Col. Spivey was not able to make his report to Washington for a year and a half by which time he was a Brigadier General. I last saw General Spivey at a POW reunion in London in 1977. He passed away a few years later in Florida.

In most of the POW camps there was a theatre. It was something less then Radio City Music Hall but welcome entertainment nonetheless. The building was an empty barrack block with a stage constructed at one end. The seats were made from Canadian Red Cross plywood packing cases. There were kriegies skilled in every theatre trade and they were great scroungers. Also there was some material sent from Britain that the Germans allowed. There was also a camp orchestra which often included one or more name musicians. The instruments were provided by the International YMCA. Concerts and theatre productions were top-notch and staged every month or so. It required several nights to cover the entire camp body due to limited seating. Everyone attended — the shows were a wonderful outlet for the performers and the audience. On opening night the German Commandant and some of the officers attended. It may sound as if prison camp was a delightful place to while away one's time. This was not the case but the Germans encouraged sports and entertainment since they felt that such activities would result in the POWs being less troublesome. The first production I remember seeing was A Midsummer's Night Dream . It was presented by the kriegies in the East Compound. I never thought I would enjoy Shakespeare as much.

In this account of POW life, Cy Grant is worthy of special mention. He was the tall, handsome RAF navigator from British Guyana who looked like Harry Belafonte. Cy was a versatile guy in sports and music. He was best known in camp for his renditions of West Indian songs and Broadway hit tunes with guitar accompaniment(his own). It started this way. Cy got his hands on a guitar from the collection of musical instruments on hand and would practice at the end of our hut. He was strumming away one day in front of an open window when an American kriegie came by. He could tell that Cy was very much in the learning stage and asked if he would like some help. The American explained that he had played guitar in a famous dance band before joining up. Cy noticed that the Americans hands were heavily bandaged and learned that it was a result of severe burns when their B-17 caught fire after being attacked. His hands were so badly injured that it was doubtful that he would ever play guitar again. This condition did not prevent him from being an excellent tutor and Cy proved to be a natural.

Christmas was now fast approaching and it hardly seemed possible that I had been a POW for nearly six months. Christmas came and went. We had a Christmas tree in the theatre where there were carol services and special entertainment during the holiday season. By then most of us had received parcels from home and one batch of Red Cross parcels contained Christmas puddings. And so we managed quite well as 1943 wound down. We were thankful to be alive and were mindful of this during the heavy bomber raids knowing that our squadron comrades were risking life and limb in the long flights into the German heartland. We could hear the reverberations of the explosions ninety miles away as RAF Bomber Command begin the Battle of Berlin which would last all winter.